James Grippando: Last Call

Theo's focus remained on Moses. "You killed her, and you bragged about it to the wrong guy in prison. To Isaac Reems."

"No way, dude," said Moses.

"Don't lie to me!" said Theo, as he stepped on the wound.

Moses cried out.

"Theo!" Andie shouted.

Theo said, "That's how Isaac found out. It's the only thing that makes sense. No other way for Isaac to be in the picture."

Moses said, "You got it wrong, dude."

Uncle Cy stepped forward. "Theo, stop!"

"Stay out of this," said Theo.

"What're you gonna do?" his uncle said. "You can't kill him here, right in front of an FBI agent. That's cold-blooded murder."

"Your uncle's right," said Andie.

"You gonna arrest me for murder?" Theo scoffed.

"You shoot him, I will," said Andie.

Theo knelt down and pressed the barrel between Moses' eyes. "Do you know how bad I want this?" said Theo.

Andie said, "I can't let you shoot him."

"Then you're gonna have to shoot me," said Theo.

Andie fired a warning shot. "The next one won't miss."

"You're bluffing," said Theo.

"Don't test her!" said Cy.

"I told you to stay out of this," said Theo.

"He ain't worth it," said Cy.

"He deserves to die."

"He's – no, he don't."

"It ain't your call," said Theo.

"Theo, I'm telling you the truth. Moses don't deserve it."

"He deserves worse."

"No, he don't."

"After what he did," said Theo.

"Theo, it wasn't him. Moses didn't do it."

"How do you know?"

"Because I was there."

"What do you mean, you were there?"

"I did it!"

Theo looked at him with disbelief. Jack and Andie looked equally stunned.

Theo said, "I don't believe you."

Cy took a step closer. "She ruined me with her damn drugs. I had a career, a reputation in this town. Until she hooked me on crack. Lost every single one of my gigs. Pretty soon the only joint that would hire me was a dive like Homeboy's. And the only reason they put up with me is 'cause Portia turned her tricks there and gave the manager a cut."

Theo glanced down at Moses, who looked almost as befuddled as Theo felt. Theo didn't want to see his uncle's face, but he finally looked at him. "You lying to me, old man?"

Cy shook his head. "Put the gun away."

Theo looked at Jack, searching for some signal that this was all just a nightmare.

"Do as Cy says," Jack told him.

"Save yourself another useless trip to death row," said Andie, her aim steady.

Theo lowered his gun. He was staring into the darkness, making eye contact with no one. It was difficult to think clearly, but the same thoughts kept swirling in his head – the way his uncle had never been able to tell him a single good thing about his mother, the repeated hints about secrets surrounding her murder, the way he'd pressed Theo's hand to his heart and flat-out warned him: "The past will hurt you, boy. It will cut you open and laugh in your face."

"Hey!" Moses grunted. "Can somebody call 911 already?"

"Yeah," Theo said in a weak voice. "I think I need it."

Theo wanted to kill his uncle. But not for murdering his mother.

"You were gonna shoot Moses right between the eyes," the old man said.

"You didn't have to lie to me like that," said Theo.

"I couldn't let you kill a man right in front of an FBI agent. No matter how much he deserved it."

The two men were sitting out on the wood deck behind Theo's town house. Venus was rising in the east, and Theo guessed that the sun would emerge in not too many more minutes. Both men were exhausted, but neither one had been able to think about going to bed. Not since the ministroke last summer had Theo seen the old man smoke a cigarette, but tonight was an exception. With everything that had happened at HAPP-Y Stables, Theo cut him some slack.

"Guess I was dead right about Moses," said Theo.

"Mmm-hmm," said Cy

They'd been over it several times already, each time pressing another bit of speculation into established fact. Moses had been a teenage punk in an Overtown gang in the 1980s. Redden was an Overtown developer who had just been named Miami businessman of the year. Portia Knight saw Redden on the evening news and recognized him as the frat boy who'd raped her fourteen years earlier. She made the fatal mistake of calling Redden instead of going to the police. For far less money than Portia had tried to extort from him ,Redden hired Moses to slit her throat and silence her forever. It had been the perfect crime – until all those years later, when Moses and Isaac Reems, fellow inmates at TGK, got to trading war stories about the 'hood.

"Pretty ballsy move/' said Theo, "the way Isaac turned Moses' bragging against him and Redden. Isaac got two pretty big players – one inside, one outside – to help him bust out of prison."

"He got hisself killed. Almost got you killed, too."

Cy crushed out his cigarette and lit up another one.

"You gonna smoke that whole pack?" said Theo.

"Mmm-hmm."

White wisps of smoke curled into the night air. Theo watched the leaves move in the huge gumbo-limbo overhead. The breeze was picking up, another sign of the coming dawn. Cy was smoking furiously.

"What's wrong?" said Theo.

"Nothin'."

"You gonna tell me or you gonna make me guess?"

"I said it's nothin'." Cy inhaled so deeply that it made him cough.

"You're lying again," said Theo.

The old man didn't respond.

Theo could have dropped the entire line of conversation, but in his heart he knew that if the sun came up and this remained unsaid, they would never, ever talk about it.

"Something you said before keeps gnawing at me," said Theo. "It was when you and me were alone in the new bar, doing the inspections. I could feel that there was something you needed to say. All you would tell me is to be careful about poking into my momma's murder. And then when I pushed you to explain, all you would say is that it ain't a story with a happy ending."

The ash on the end of Cy's cigarette was nearly an inch long. Theo wanted to walk over and flick it for him.

Cy said, "I don't want to talk about it no more."

"Well, I do" Theo scooted forward to the edge of his chair. "Tonight, when you told me you were the killer, that conversation flashed in my mind. It was like I was hearing your words again: "This ain't a story with a happy ending"'

Cy glanced at him nervously, his face clouded by smoke.

Theo said, "When we was in the bar, I figured all you meant was that my momma ended up dead. But the more I thought about it, that's too obvious. No need to say it, right? I knew my momma got killed, so why would you even bother warning me that the story don't have a happy ending?"

"I don't know. Why would I?"

"Last night, for a split second there, I thought maybe I had the answer. The unhappy ending you were warning me about wasn't my momma getting killed. It was when…"

"When what?"

"You know."

"When you found out I killed her?"

"Yeah. Like I said: Just for a split second there, that's what I thought you meant."

Cy was staring off toward the trees, avoiding Theo's gaze.

Theo was all the way to the edge of his chair, resting his forearms on his knees as he leaned toward his uncle. "That ain't what you meant, was it?"

Cy flicked his cigarette butt over the fence. Finally, he looked Theo in the eye. "You really want to know what I meant?"

Theo nodded. "Yeah. I do."

His uncle swallowed hard, and suddenly Theo wasn't so certain that he wanted to know. But it was too late to stop it now.

Cy folded his arms and said, "You never was good in math, was your

"What are you talking about?"

"Your momma was raped in the spring of 1972."